[Jewelry making - Article 00905] - Re: [Orchid] Chemical etching of copper

[Noel Yovovich]

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    Hi, Mike, Actually, I'll have more complete information in the next
    couple of months, as I'm doing a set of tests on etching that will
    be published in June. (I'll post the article here once it has
    appeared.) But I can tell you a few things. Sharpie pen is definately
    not adequate. Paint markers work much better (art or hobby stores).
    Their tips make really fine lines difficult, but they work well,
    especially for copper, as opposed to silver. You will improve the
    "grip" of your resist if you etch your plain sheet briefly and then
    rinse and dry, before you add any resist. "Briefly" means 1-2 minutes
    for silver in nitric, maybe 5-10 for copper in ferric. By the way,
    nitric doesn't really work on copper-- it is for silver.    I have a
    pen that works really well on copper. It was given to me, so I don't
    know where it came from, but it says "Decon" on it, plus some other
    stuff that is pretty worn off-- maybe DAI 033 PC and some illegible
    other stuff. The piece of paper wrapped around it describes it as an
    acid resist marker pen. Sorry if that isn't of any use. The
    traditional material to use is asphaltum. Basically tar, obviously.
    It takes hours to dry, and is best suited for covering a whole piece
    and scratching through as in doing a printing plate. A related
    material referred to as etching ground (it has another name, but I
    can't think of it) is also tarry, bought in little bottles in art
    stores, but dries quickly. The trick is that if you dry it too
    thoroughly, it chips when you scratch it. Ruins brushes very fast,
    too. My own preference is generally for transfer etching as with PnP
    blue or (what I use) ironing on photocopies. I really can't type a
    tutorial on that here right now, but it will be in my article. I am
    testing three different methods. A last word on mordants-- adding
    citric acid is supposed to help: search the archives under
    "Edinburgh (sp?) etch". Also will be... you know, in the article.  
    Can you really make a bomb out of nitric acid?  HTH! 


--No=EBl


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